What Model Redesign Or Refresh Do You Hate The Most?

Just like everyone one else in America, we fear change around here. Sometimes messing with success can ended up less as a follow-up success and with more emphasis on the “mess” part of the equation. But times change, designs change, and what was once good can go downhill real fast if no one is looking too closely. 

A stray bit of trim here, the addition of chrome to a fender, and suddenly you’re stuck with something that looks not quite like itself. Automakers will swing way too far away from the original formula and end up pumping out eye-sores. I wanna know which eye sore do you find the most egregious? 

I love Detroit steel, but man, I need to slip into the passive voice here; choices were made in the 1970s. Take for instance, the Dodge Charger. The third generation of Chargers were rakish muscle cars with badass styling that left that era’s Ford Mustang and Chevy Carmaro in the dust. Somehow, this gorgeous expression of American muscle power turned into…this:

My brothers in gasoline, what did you do? Dodge took a perfectly good muscle car and slapped a luxury-for-the-time looking grill, bug-eyed headlights, and a goofy ornament on it’s hood. Most egregious, however, is the chrome bumper that could compete with the most ostentatious Cadillacs of the Malaise Era. It’s straight up hard to find an image of one of these monstrosities because there just aren’t a lot for sale on the classic car websites. Like gas crisis lines and avocado green paint, it’s a generation of Dodge best left forgotten. 

What about you? What car do you love except for that one generation where the automaker seemed to have lost the plot entirely?